“Work hard. Be nice.”

This principle has guided Visualhero since day one. It reflects our midwestern work ethic, the respect we have for each other and our appreciation of simplicity.

While this has remained constant, our daily practice of design has changed pretty significantly over the past twelve years. We've found ourselves moving from providing primarily visual design to solving critical problems for companies and brands.

Just as we have grown, so has technology and business. John Maeda, Design Partner of Kleiner Perkins, states:

“Great design is not just about ‘design.’ To achieve great design, you need great business thinking/doing - to effectively invest in design - and you need great engineering to achieve unflagging performance.”

As design’s impact evolves, so shall ours.

A vision and an opportunity

It gives me great pride to announce that Visualhero is now an Open Systems Technologies (OST) company. While we’ve had a long-standing relationship with our fellow west siders, this year’s discussions allowed me to really understand who they are, what they stand for and where they’re going. They’ve built a company around similar, employee-centered values and share a common understanding of the opportunities the future of design, business and technology. I couldn’t be more confident in our ability to do great things for our collective clients.

To start, here are a few things we’re excited about:

Collaborating with a talented, multi-disciplined, technical team to support client experiences. Through this, we’re looking forward to growing our collective ability to deliver meaningful outcomes for clients.

The opportunity to introduce our human-centered design expertise to some impressive clients from around the world.

What’s next for the heroes?

The Visualhero you’ve known all along isn’t going anywhere. We will continue our design services for all types of clients. We will begin to integrate OST’s analytics, professional service and technical expertise with our experience design and strategic offerings. This will help us engage in the hardest problems organizations face.

We’ve included a few FAQs below to answer any questions you may have. If you have questions that are not covered on this page, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Before we get to work, I’d like to say thank you to everyone that made this possible: From friends and family, team members past and present, and every single client that’s ever trusted us with your business. You are why we will never stopping pushing Visualhero to do greater and greater things.

Who is OST?

Founded in 1997, Open Systems Technologies (OST) is a West Michigan-based IT services company, specializing in enterprise software, application development and hardware solutions. In addition to all that, they’re also great, smart and wildly welcoming people. In fact, if you're standing in our office and look out our windows, you can wave to their awesome office and there’s a 75% chance someone will wave back. We’ve been teaming up with OST for many, many years now, so we’ve seen first hand that they’re the best in what they do.

Do we still call you Visualhero?

Yes! That’s not changing but you may see “an OST company” on our website. However, if you call us Visual Hero, we’re probably going to correct you.

Why is this good for Visualhero?

All good questions have many answers. This is one of them. In short, it means we now have an even greater toolbox to bring to the table when solving complex problems for great clients. For our employees, it means the ability to grow professionally through exposure with some of the best IT minds in the country.

Where do I go to meet with Visualhero?

This one’s easy too. The same office you’ve been visiting all along. And yes, Tina will still be here to warmly greet you.

Why is this good for OST?

Through our years of working with OST, they’ve grown to understand, appreciate and value what design can do for businesses. In an effort to better serve their clients, they’ve looked to add user experience design, human-centered design thinking and visual communication to their growing list of services. Plus, they're also believers that we're all better off together.

Will this change invoicing and billing?

Another good question?! You’re on fire! Invoicing will run just as it always has, although there may be an alternate address to submit payment. However, if you have the smallest amount of confusion about this, give us a call and we’ll talk it through. We should be honest here and say that this is one area of our transition that will be sorted out in the first few weeks. If we had a “Pardon Our Dust; There Is Work In Progress” sign, it would go right here.

Can I just work with Visualhero? And does this mean I have to use OST for development work if I work with VH?